Beloved, not forgotten
by greyslostwho
Summary: Just a nice little helping of Maddison angst. Drabble-ish. Oneshot.


**BELOVED, NOT FORGOTTEN**

**So, I'm having a shitty day, and so I'm writing angst. I don't change much. This is a little helping of some future angst. I'm working on the assumption Addison went to Mark's never seen funeral. Drabble-ish.**

**Spoilers: Everything Maddison related we ever got :(**

**Disclaimer: You wouldn't want it to belong to me, with how decidedly NOT CHEERFUL this is.**

You haven't been there in years; you never liked the weather, and you never liked the memories Seattle held. It's been something like 30 years since you were there, for a quiet little open funeral on a graveside (29 years, ten months and four days, but who's still counting?). And now Henry's decided that he'll face the rain and has taken a position in a top corporate law firm, barely half a mile from the Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

You've always been a glutton for punishment, and you suppose that's half the reason you find yourself in a local graveyard, when you've only really been down for the weekend to see Henry's new apartment, right in the city centre.

You know exactly where the grave is, you stood beside it in silence in the biting cold, unable to cry any more tears.

You didn't quite feel _welcome, _though none of them ever said anything that gave you that idea. There was something in many of their eyes though, particularly Meredith's, that said _when he died, Lexie was the woman Mark loved, he wasn't about you anymore;_ the state you were in, how heavy your heart felt in those moments, had you taking it all like blows to the chest.

The grave's sunken a little into the ground, as they have a habit of doing when they've been there near enough three decades, but the words are still there.

MARK EVERETT SLOAN

1968-2012

BELOVED

Somehow, 'beloved' doesn't quite say everything it ought to say, you think, and you've been thinking for the last thirty years. You've tried, not to forget exactly, but to distance yourself.

You're happy, you've been a mother for thirty years, you've been married for almost that long, and you weren't under any illusions stood at that graveside long ago, he hadn't loved you for a long time. You suppose there's a part of you that's always going to love him, though, regardless of everything.

An arthritic hip complaining, you sink into the grass opposite Mark, just for a few minutes.

He was the person that made you feel loved again in a rotten marriage.

He was going to be the father of your child; he was going to be your family.

He lied for you, about that blasted 60 day pact, you've always known that, because after everything, he didn't want you to feel guilty, he didn't want you to be fighting for him when you didn't really want him. He wanted you to be happy, wherever that was, whoever that was with.

He accepted all your flaws. Sure, that was because he had as many, if not more, but you didn't think there would be anything you could have done to him that he wouldn't have forgiven eventually.

He came to Seattle to win you back, that first time, even if he wouldn't admit it. It hurts a little bit to think it all through, rehash such ancient history, but you should have gone, really.

However it ended, however much he broke your heart, that conversation, one of the last conversations you ever had, in the sheets in LA; he was years of your history, years of your life you weren't ever going to forget.

There was a time when he used to close his eyes when you kissed him, and looking back, you think he was thinking of forever.

You suppose, actually, 'beloved' does go quite a long way. Somehow it starts to explain all those things you can't quite put into words; things you wouldn't expect anyone else to understand.

It possibly causes a little too much pain, as you heave yourself off the ground. You're getting too old for this.

You're going back for dinner with your son now, and in the morning you'll be flying home to your husband, and you'll push this right back into a corner of your mind.

Until the next time.

You kiss two fingers of your right hand, and press them gently to the top of the slightly eroding granite, closing your eyes for a moment.

"I'll always love you." You breathe, painfully quietly.

If anyone had been listening, you're not even sure they would have heard.

**That's a wrap! Apologies for the angst overload! **

**Reviews are always much appreciated, despite this fandom dwindling!**

**greyslostwho**


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